The Captain's Arm
by Aemillia
Summary: The Usopp pirate team, minus their departed captain, makes an unusual discovery. A parody of the classic W. W. Jacobs' story The Monkey's Paw.


Disclaimer: One Piece and its characters are the creation of Oda Eiichiro. Additionally, the manga and anime are owned and/or licensed by multiple companies both in America and Japan. I in no way own nor profit from this work. The Monkey's Paw was written by. W. W. Jacobs and belongs to him. Please note that this is a work of parody, albeit a poor one.

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Strange things were always washing up on shore. The sea was fond of divulging her unwanted trash on sandy beaches and sometimes she let a few treasures slip free as well, tempting men to explore her and eventually come to rest in her depths. Exploring tidal pools was about the most excitement they had anymore, now that the captain was gone. Usopp had always been able to turn even the most mundane of salt-riddled scraps into treasure, making up wild stories about what they had been and how even something as simple as a worm eaten board or bits of smooth glass had gone through adventures before ending up on their beach. Carrot didn't have that sort of gift, but he tried his hand at it sometimes. Anything was better than the interminable boredom that had beset his friends since their leader had followed his dream. 

He was ambling along the shoreline when his eye caught on a strange sight. Jellyfish weren't uncommon, blobs of clear goo that they flung at each other or snuck into the classroom to torment the girls with. But they weren't usually so big nor so very green. The blob wasn't even transparent the way it should have been but it quivered properly when Carrot poked at it with a handy piece of driftwood. It smelled kind of funny too, undertones of sourness beneath the salt water tang that spiced the air. It was the most interesting thing that had happened since Pepper got thrashed for stealing a pie on a dare two weeks ago and Carrot ran off to get his friends.

"What is it?" Onion asked, stabbing it with his own stick as he squatted next to the large green glob.

Carrot posed dramatically and doffed his hat so that his hair sprang up even more than his usual tuft. This was his chance to continue the captain's legacy. After all, a bar owner had to have a gift of gab if he wanted people to stay and keep drinking. "It's a…" and his voiced dropped for effect as he leaned closer to the other boy. "Sea Monster's egg!"

"A sea monster's egg?" Pepper parroted dubiously. "Looks more like sea monster crap to me."

"You think that's crap? What the hell kind of animal craps green?"

"I do," Pepper muttered, "after I've drank one of your stupid concoctions that make my stomach hurt."

"Hey, a bartender's gotta have new drinks or people won't want to come in. You didn't tell me they made you sick," Carrot added, his feelings just a little hurt.

"I think," Onion broke in, trying to head off another squabble that would probably end with his glasses broken and a week's worth of grounding for all of them, " that we should see if there's anything inside. Then we'd know if it's an egg or not."

The voice of reason had spoken and the brewing quarrel was stopped before it could begin as all three boys stabbed, poked, and finally smashed at the rubbery green glob with their sticks. It was tougher than the usual jellyfish goo but they were persistent and finally they broke through the tough outer covering. A rank smell burst forth, mainly rotting fish guts, and they backed off with fingers pinched over their noses.

"See, I TOLD you it was crap," a triumphant but nasally Pepper proclaimed. "Ouch!"

Carrot took his foot off of the other boy's toes and stuck his tongue out. "We don't know that it's crap yet. It could still be an egg and the baby sea monster is just, ya know, dead inside or something."

Onion, who was trying to decide if journalism would be more profitable than fiction, ignored the antics of his friends and ventured back over to the opened mystery. He peered inside, one hand still over his nose. "You're both wrong. I think it's actually sea monster vomit."

After much jostling and jockeying for room, all three boys stared down into the green blob, the smell forgotten as they studied what was inside. It was mostly fish, some mere bones and some nearly whole, but there were clumps of seaweed as well and part of an oar and a rusty piece of metal that might have been a sword. The contents were well preserved, other than the rusty metal, and Carrot and Pepper decided to agree that it was indeed vomit.

"But what kind of sea monster has vomit that doesn't decompose?" Onion looked at his two friends, who merely shrugged.

"The same kind that has green vomit." Pepper stirred through the mess with his stick, pushing aside a half-eaten tentacle and nudging at the biggest seaweed wad. "Who knows? Sea kings are dangerous so I don't suppose people get a chance to study them."

Carrot knocked his stick into Pepper's, still a little peeved at the other boy's comment about his drinks. "I bet the Captain is studying them. I bet he's seen hundreds."

"Ha! I bet he's seen thousands," Pepper retorted and they went back to scuffling, their sticks stirring up the mess and the smell. Onion sighed and was about to go sit down on the sand to wait it out when something caught his eye.

"Stop! I think I see something."

He pointed down into the vomit egg where a piece of reddish cloth was peeking through the layers of ocean plant life. The fighting stopped as all three boys worked together with their sticks. Careful maneuvering brought the largest mass of seaweed out and onto the beach. After a quick rinse in the waves, the boys gave up on tools and used their hands to untangle the slimy green plants, tackling and tearing apart the knots until the thing hidden inside was revealed.

An arm. The thing inside was a human arm. A human arm with skin cured by saltwater, only slightly wrinkled and covered in what was probably a once-white sleeve. Red stained the upper part of the cloth and the boys knew instinctively that it was blood. More than likely, it was blood that was belonged to the owner of the arm. Onion dropped ropes of seaweed onto the beach and scooted away, his bottom dragging a path through damp sand.

"That's," he said tremulously, his finger shaking as he pointed it at the arm, "that's, that's…"

"An arm. We know." Carrot and Pepper spoke in unison, shaking their heads at Onion. "A really well preserved arm too," Pepper added. "How old d'you think it is."

"Hard to say." Carrot reached out and carefully touched the tip of his finger to one of the still, leathery digits. "I don't know anything about sea monster vomit or how well it keeps stuff. Could be a few days, could be a few years. Might even be a few centuries. Wouldn't that be cool?"

"No, it would not be cool." Onion had regained his footing and he ventured back over to prod the arm with his foot. "This is somebody's arm that they obviously lost to the sea monster. They could have lost their life as well. Maybe another blob will wash up on shore and there'll be a head in it or something. Or maybe the arm's owner is still alive. We should put it back inside the vomit and just let the high tide take it away. I bet it's got germs and stuff anyway."

"A head would be even better than an arm. Can't do too much with an arm. But a head…just think of how scary that would be. We could freak everybody in the village out, top even the Captain's best pranks because it would even be true." Carrot's eyes were alight with mischief and Onion frowned, thought about his father's belt, and planted his foot over the arm's wrist.

"Oh no. We're not taking this with us to scratch at windows or play tricks at school."

Unexpected support came from Pepper. "Yeah, we shouldn't do that."

"Why not?" Carrot pouted. "Nothing ever happens around here and at least this would liven things up."

"Because," said Pepper. "I bet this isn't just any old arm. I bet it's a magic arm, just like that monkey arm in the story my granddad told me."

"A magic arm?" Carrot perked up, kicked Onion's ankle until he moved his foot off the disembodied limb.

"Yeah. See, there's this monkey arm that travels around in the ocean and it grants five wishes, one for each finger. Except the monkey arm is cursed or something because the people who find it always end up dead."

"Dead?" Onion squeaked, backing once more away from the arm. "I don't want to end up dead."

"You won't. I figure, this is a human arm, see? And so it can't have the same kind of curse as a monkey."

"What makes you think it's magic?" Carrot asked, familiarity with Usopp's tales making him skeptical even though he desperately wanted to believe.

"Well, I reckon first of all that it's inside this sea monster vomit thing. It isn't chomped all to pieces and it isn't decomposing like the stuff that washed up inside sharks. Just look at it. It's in really good shape. And, since we didn't find any other body parts that means the body that the arm came from didn't get chomped. Because otherwise it'd be in here like the fish and stuff. So that means the arm's owner has to be really powerful because who else can survive a sea monster attack?"

Pepper seemed to be out of reasons after that, staring at the arm as if he expected it to sprout legs or suddenly start writing messages in the sand. Onion sat in the sand, knees pulled up to his chest, and stared also, as if he was waiting for the arm to suddenly fly at him and start choking. Carrot reached down and picked up the arm, watched as the hand flopped over at the wrist.

"I guess we won't know unless we make a wish."

"I guess so," Pepper agreed.

"What should we wish for? Something simple and safe I think, just in case it really is cursed." Carrot absently shook the arm as he thought and Onion watched as if mesmerized by fear as the fingers waved through the air.

"Yeah, something that obviously has to be magic but nothing too complicated or greedy. It was the greedy people that always died really horrible deaths in my granddad's story." Pepper ran fingers back through his black hair and hummed thoughtfully. "How about…food of some kind?"

"Like what? Something we can't get?"

"Nah, that would be greedy. Just, something we COULD get but normally wouldn't. Like, I dunno, food that usually only gets eaten on special occasions. Like that fudge cake your mom makes for birthdays. She doesn't make it other times, does she?"

Carrot shook his head. "Nope, she says it's too much trouble and wouldn't be special if we had it all the time. And it's nobody's birthday that I know of…"

"That's it then." Pepper nodded decisively. "We'll wish for fudge cake."

And so they did. It took some coaxing and some threats but they finally got Onion to agree to the experiment. All three boys reached out, gingerly on Onion's part, and touched the arm as they spoke their wish.

"We wish that Carrot's mom would make her special fudge cake today."

Nothing seemed to happen and Pepper frowned with disappointment when the five fingers stayed intact. "Aw, the monkey fingers always broke when a wish had been granted."

"Well, maybe since this isn't a monkey's it'll be different. We'll just have to wait and see."

Onion finally spoke up again, still staring morbidly at the well-preserved piece of human flesh. "What are we gonna do with it. I don't want to take it home with me and I don't think you guys should either."

"We'll stash it in the cave. It should be okay in there." Carrot glanced at Onion's pale face and sighed. "And, if you're so scared, we can even stick it in the box and close all the locks and stuff so it can't come out and attack you in your sleep."

"Y…you think it would come and –"

"No, idiot. I'm just teasing you. But we can lock it up anyway just to make you feel better."

That is precisely what they did. Carrot carried the arm, since technically it was his find first, and the other two boys followed him around the curve of the island until they reached the small cave nestled at the base of the high bluffs that made up the western part of their home. The high tide only ever reached the cave two or three times a year and so Usopp, who had found it, proclaimed it an ideal base. They kept all their secret boyish treasures there and often spent hours just sitting around and daring each other to perform different and increasingly stupid deeds. They had an old metal footlocker, salvaged from the shoreline. It was rusty on the surface but the interior was still whole. Inside they kept their most precious possessions and Pepper solemnly placed the arm in among several of the Captain's old slingshots, a half-finished bottle of whiskey, two signal flares, and their old Jolly Roger. Making sure Onion could see, he wrapped several lengths of chain around the footlocker and finally held them all together with a padlock. The key he presented to Onion.

"Just so you can be sure no one else can open the chest."

The rest of the day was spent in unspoken anticipation and not even a well-conceived water-bucket-and-frogs prank against the stuffy Syrup Village clerk was enough to take their minds off of Carrot's possible dessert. Finally, as the sun started to dip beneath the tree line, the three boys stood together in the town square.

"You ready?" Pepper asked, a reassuring hand on Carrot's shoulder.

"Yeah. I mean, it'll either work and I'll get some awesome fudge cake, or it won't. It's no big deal."

"What if it DOES work?" Onion inquired, the key making an imprint in his palm as he clenched his fist.

"Then we'll just have to be really careful about what we wish for next. We're onto the whole curse thing so I'm sure we'll be fine." Pepper clapped Onion on the back. "Stop being such a worrier. Where's your spirit of adventure? Just think, if it's really magic you can write an awesome story about it. And now I'm ready for dinner so I'll see you all tomorrow."

The darker boy waved goodbye and Carrot nodded casually at Onion. "I'll see you tomorrow. Don't sweat it. If the arm's gonna come after anybody, it'll be me."

"Is that supposed to be reassuring?" Onion murmured, but he mustered up a weak smile and waved after Carrot before heading for his own house.

"There you are young man! You're late."

Carrot's mother stood waiting in the brightly lit doorway, hands on her hips and a frown on her face. "I've been holding dinner and your father's not too happy about it. Get in here, wash your hands, and sit down."

Carrot, too excited to find out about the wish, didn't bother with his usual token protestations of innocence. The house didn't have the rich chocolaty scent it usually did on birthdays but that didn't mean there wasn't a cake. He sat down at the dinner table, half-scrubbed hands on his lap, and even his father's hunger-darkened glare wasn't enough to quench his spirits. Dinner passed quickly but still too slow for Carrot and he gobbled down his pork chops and even salad without any complaint. His parents exchanged glances and his father shook his head somewhat regretfully. His mother nodded and once everyone's plate was cleared, she went to the kitchen and brought back out dessert.

His eyes getting almost as big as saucers, Carrot stared at the perfectly formed fudge cake sitting in the middle of the table. It was real. The wish had been granted. He reached out with one hesitant finger to see if it was really there and not a hallucination but his father, obviously thinking he was trying to sneak a bite of frosting, blocked him.

"Oh no, young man. I'm sorry but there's no dessert for you tonight. Mr. Fetherwright told me about your little joke. Did you know you ruined two weeks' worth of work? If it was something you could do, you'd be over there right now fixing things. But you can't." The older man sighed, ran strong miller's fingers through his own unruly thatch of hair. "I know you boys like to have your fun. And I know you didn't mean to ruin his work. And that's why you're not grounded. But you can't have any cake tonight. I want you to think about the repercussions of your actions. You need to learn to look ahead and anticipate consequences. And if there's any leftover tomorrow after your mother offers some to Mr. Fetherwright, maybe I'll reconsider then. But for now it's time for you to do the dishes and then off to bed."

His mouth was hanging open and Carrot closed it with an audible snap. This was too strange to be mere coincidence. Perhaps the arm was cursed after all. Knowing full well that he should be grateful not to be grounded, the boy meekly gathered up the dishes and carried them off to the kitchen. Arms deep in soapy water, he frowned and hoped that nothing bad was happening to his friends. He couldn't sleep and his venture downstairs in search of the leftover cake came up empty. The night seemed interminably long.

Pepper and Onion were waiting for him right outside his front door the next morning, the latter boy with dark circles underneath his glasses a match to the bags under Carrot's eyes.

"Well?" asked Pepper, bouncing from foot to foot in expectation.

"It worked," Carrot replied, his voice coming out thick and rough. "It worked all right."

"So? Tell us all about it."

"Not until we go check on the arm. And then I'll tell you guys everything, okay?"

His reply was met with some good-natured grumbling but even Pepper knew better than to push when Carrot looked so serious. The trio of boys headed for the beach and their cave, the key feeling like lead in Onion's pocket. He'd spent the entire night in dreadful anticipation but nothing had happened and he'd been starting to feel better until Carrot came out looking like he'd seen a ghost. Fumbling fingers unlocked and unwound chains and all three boys pushed the lid back to stare inside.

The arm looked exactly the same except for one key detail. The fingers had all been straight and relatively pliant the day before but now the pinky finger was curled in towards the palm. Color drained from Onion's face and Carrot let out his breath in a loud puff.

"I knew it," he said, flopping back to sit against the smooth stone wall. "It really does work."

"So you had fudge cake last night?" Pepper settled in next to him and ignored the way Onion scrunched up against his side.

"Yes," was the answer. "And no."

"What do you mean? Either you did or you didn't."

"Well," Carrot said, steepling his fingers in front of his face. "There was a fudge cake last night. Or at least it looked like fudge cake. But I didn't get to eat any or even touch it to make sure it was really there. Mr. Fetherwright told my folks about the frogs and Dad decided that instead of grounding me I just couldn't have any cake."

"Huh." Pepper absently patted Onion on the knee and pretended not to notice the other boy's trembling. "So it worked but we can't be positive it worked. I guess there's nothing for it but to try again."

"No! Let's get rid of it." Onion jumped to his feet and pointed in the direction of the footlocker. "It's clearly cursed just like the monkey paw in your granddad's stories. If it wasn't, Carrot could've had cake. But he didn't get any. Let's not take any more chances."

"But we don't know for sure it was the arm that brought the cake," Pepper protested. "It could have looked like a fudge cake but without getting to eat it, how would Carrot know for sure? I say we make another wish."

"I don't want to die," Onion wailed. "We should just throw it back to the sea."

"It's a golden opportunity," Pepper argued, climbing to his feet as well and grabbing Onion's wrist when the other boy tried to bolt for the box.

Carrot stood up too, and gently separated the struggling boys. "Why don't we go see if that green blob thing is still on the beach? If it is, we can put the arm inside and that'll be the end of it. And if it isn't, we'll make another wish."

"How does that make any sense?" Onion was near tears and Carrot carefully nudged the near-sighted boy out of the cave.

"We're leaving it up to fate. If we aren't meant to make more wishes, we won't."

It was a stupid reason but it was the best and most equitable one he could come up with. His two friends finally agreed and they walked slowly along the shoreline. Six hours and a complete circuit of the island later found them back in front of their cave. There had been no sign of the green casing and Pepper was grinning in triumph as he led the way back inside the cool, damp shadows.

"I know just what to wish for," he exclaimed, going over to the box and pulling out the well-preserved arm. "We'll keep it simple and safe again, something that COULD happen but likely wouldn't. Your mom's really proud of her fudge cake recipe, right Carrot? I'll ask for my mom to learn the recipe and make it too. That way we'll see if the arm can make it happen and if it's a real fudge cake."

The wish seemed reasonable enough, unlikely to bring any of them serious harm. What was the worst that could happen? Onion warned about dire cooking accidents befalling Pepper's mom, but the dark-haired boy laughed them off. In the end, they managed to coax him into touching the arm and the wish was made. They locked the arm back up and spent the rest of the afternoon digging for clams. They parted ways on the edge of town and Pepper made them all promise to meet the next morning at the market square.

He was there the next morning, scuffling his feet and glancing furtively over his shoulder like he expected some one-armed apparition to show up behind him, when Carrot and Onion arrived.

"Well?" Onion looked even worse than he had the day before, his eyes looking bruised and his brow furrowed.

"It's like Carrot said yesterday. It worked…I think. Let's go check on the arm."

The solemn trio made their way to the beach and undid the bindings on their footlocker. Inside, a second finger curled ominously inwards and Pepper blanched and headed back out of the cave.

"So?" Carrot nudged the silent boy. "What happened?"

"Mr. Fetherwright apparently told my parents too. And he loves your mom's fudge cake so much that he raved about it to my mom until she went and begged your mom for the recipe. I wouldn't know if it tastes as good because I didn't get to eat any. I spent my evening sweeping out the clerk's office as punishment for the frog trick and only got beets for supper."

"That sucks." Carrot gave him a conciliatory pat on the head. "So we still don't know whether or not it's the arm or just a bunch of weird coincidences."

"Yes we do! It works and it's cursed!" Onion stood in front of his two friends, hands planted on his hips. "We should get rid of it now. I don't want anything worse to happen!"

"Mmm. Well I don't wanna have to do more chores and I really hate beets but it wasn't that bad if it was a curse." Pepper leaned back, stretched himself out in the warm sand. "I think we should give it one more shot."

"C'mon Carrot. You wanna get rid of it, right?" Onion was practically begging as he appealed to the taller boy.

The Captain, Carrot mused to himself, probably would've flung the arm back into the sea as soon as he laid eyes on it. But Usopp was off having adventures and there wasn't much for three growing boys to do on an island like theirs. They had to make their own fun and the arm was the most interesting thing that had happened since the butler incident. And really, the 'curses' so far had been harmless. One more try wouldn't hurt.

"I think," he drawled slowly, weighing the matter. "We should try one more time. And if we get another negative result we'll get rid of the arm. I promise," he added as Onion's face fell.

"You guys are crazy. I'm going home." Onion turned to stomp away but Pepper caught him by the ankles and tripped him so that he fell face first into the sand.

"Oh no you don't. This time you've gotta make a wish. We've already tried so now it's your turn."

"But I don't wanna!"

"Oh stop being such a girly baby." Pepper sat up, keeping his grip on Onion's ankles. "What would the Captain say if he saw you?"

"He'd tell you to stop crying and be a man," Carrot added, sitting on Onion's back when it looked like the blond boy would wriggle free from Pepper.

"No he wouldn't." Onion sniffled and tried to buck off Carrot but the other boy was heavy. "He would have run away long ago."

That was likely true, but Carrot thought it still wasn't nice to say and he settled his weight more firmly and planted a hand between Onion's shoulders.

"A little work and some beets might actually do you some good." Pepper stood up and brushed himself off. "I'll go get the arm and we'll get this over with."

The matter wasn't resolved quite so simply but after a lot of threats and physical persuasion Onion finally agreed to make a wish. This time the boys wished that Onion's mom would get the recipe and make the fudge cake. Since his dad did practically all of the cooking in his house, this would be the hardest wish yet for the arm to grant but it still wasn't outside the realm of possibility. They didn't play that afternoon, just sat around staring out at sea and Onion didn't speak to the other two. That night when they parted ways, the sun glowed like an ominous red eye as it sank beneath the waves.

Carrot and Pepper waited for Onion at the market until the sun burned off the last of the morning dew. Their friend never showed and exchanging worried glances, they made their way towards his house. At their knock, his mother opened the door.

"Ah boys, I was waiting for you."

Onion's mom was short and round, her blond hair swept back into a bun and glasses perched on her nose. She looked like a school marm or maybe a nurse but she was really the head carpenter at the sawmill. Her husband, a tall man with corded muscles, looked like he should have had his wife's job but he served as Syrup Village's parson and did most of the housework as well as the cooking. It was well known that his wife was a terrible cook but a brilliant craftsman.

"Onion's not feeling too well today. He's caught the stomach flu and he's upstairs in bed. But he specifically asked me to tell you take care of the thing." She smiled indulgently at them, clearly imagining that the thing was some boyish innocent fancy. "Oh, and he wanted you to have some cake."

Beaming, Onion's mother bustled back into her house and returned a few moments later with two thick slices of what was clearly fudge cake. "It's your mother's recipe, Carrot, but I learned it from your mother, Pepper. Enjoy boys and I'll let Onion know you stopped by."

The door closed in their faces and Carrot and Pepper looked at the slices of cake and then at each other. The first bite was almost good but the cake got progressively worse and Carrot gave up by the fifth bite and spat half chewed fudgey badness onto the road. Pepper followed suit and they abandoned their slices in the woods where the dessert slowly dried and hardened in the sun and went untouched by even insects. Inside the footlocker, an eerie but telling sight met them. Two more fingers this time were curled in towards the palm, leaving only the middle finger still pointing out in a universally known signal.

"I guess Onion's mom's cooking is so bad it took two wishes to make it come true." By this time Pepper was holding his stomach and looking a little green around the gills.

Carrot didn't look so hot himself and he scowled at the arm. "It really is cursed. Damn it, Onion was right. We never should've made that last wish."

"Let's toss it," Pepper muttered, clearly wishing to toss his cookies but manfully holding himself back.

"Yeah, okay."

They threw the arm off of one of the cliffs, hurling it into the waves before falling to their knees and losing the contents of their stomachs. It seemed a fitting send off somehow considering how the arm had arrived. Then they went home to their beds and dreamt uncomfortable dreams of monkey-headed sea monsters eating fudge cake. After that, boredom was more than welcome.

OMAKE

Somewhere on a frozen island in the Grand Line, a red haired man blinked hazel eyes and woke with a rumbling stomach. He nudged his sleeping companion, poking at the snoring lump until the taller man snorted and cracked open a bleary eye.

"Hey Ben, go make me a fudge cake. I'm really hungry for one all of a sudden."

Ben stared at him for a long moment, put a pillow over his face, and went back to sleep.


End file.
